Stressing that he condemned the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as soon as it was introduced, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said that it was unconstitutional as the foundation of Indian independence clearly says that religion has nothing to do with citizenship. "Unlike Pakistan, we have always believed that the country is for everyone. And that is the way we have lived like for 70 years. On principle, CAA is wrong. The central government has brought Jinnah’s logic,” he said, referring to the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Adding that the country is going through challenging times, he said that it was important for every citizen to preserve originality of thinking and freshness of ideas.
Speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), the MP from Thiruvananthapuram further said that the CAA issue is a central one and the resolutions passed by different state assemblies including those of Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal were political statements telling the centre and the world that they were not happy with the move.
"However, after CAA, when the central government does NPR (National Population Register) and NRC (National Register of Citizens), they would need the support of state government employees, for example school teachers and government officials in different state departments. If the state government tells them not to go ahead, how can the employees refuse, considering they report to the state government?
When asked about the five people who were detained at JLF for raising anti-CAA slogans, the MP said he didn't know about the same and would ask Rajesh Pilot, the Deputy CM of Rajasthan who was also present at the festival about the same.
"Everybody has freedom of expression in this country, I will definitely enquire about the incident."